The Handmade Film Collective proves DIY does it better | The Coast Halifax

The Handmade Film Collective proves DIY does it better

A screening of analogue flicks that shows how personal going to the movies can be.

The Handmade Film Collective proves DIY does it better
Submitted photo

Handmade Film Screening from Coast to Coast
Tue Jan 28, 7-9pm
The Bus Stop Theatre, 2203 Gottingen Street
Free

The Handmade Film Collective is partnering with the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative to organize a free screening celebrating the art of handmade, analogue film. The screening—a much-needed cure to the glut of CGI on view at the multiplex—will be taking place at 7pm on Tuesday, January 28th at The Bus Stop Theatre.

Dawn George is one of The Handmade Film Collective organizers. She is excited to showcase over 20 shorts made by filmmakers across Canada. The collective has temporarily traded flicks by Atlantic filmmakers with ones made by west coast directors who are facilitating their own screening in Victoria, BC.

This year will be the second screening the collective has arranged in Halifax. "Last year was a fantastic turnout," says George.

The HFC plays with handmade techniques like eco-processing (DIY recipes to develop film with a smaller environmental footprint), bucket-processing, animating and even film destruction when processing film stock. Each film shown will have been tampered with physically, either with "scratches, paint or even buried and dug up again," says George. She explains that handmade films are "defined as when the filmmakers hand-tweaks the actual film."

Before the screening, a handmade film performance instillation will be directed by artists s rybczyn and z crow.

George hopes the collective will have more opportunities to organize events like this in the future. This screening will offer alternative approaches to viewing films and filmmaking while challenging cinematic conventions: "There is a real interest in handmade analogue cinema here," she says.